Editorial Policies

These editorial policies of Latin American Journal of Astronautics (LAJA) establish the principles, criteria, and procedures that guide the journal’s editorial management. Their purpose is to ensure transparency, academic integrity, scientific quality, and good practices in manuscript evaluation, editing, and publication.

These policies are formulated in light of internationally recognized standards and recommendations in scholarly publishing and may be updated whenever necessary to strengthen editorial quality, legal clarity, and the reliability of the scholarly record.

Contents

Open Access Policy

LAJA is a full open-access journal. All content is made immediately and freely available to readers, researchers, educators, students, and the interested public, without subscription fees or access barriers.

The journal understands open access in line with the principles promoted by the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), supporting the reading, downloading, copying, distribution, printing, linking, and lawful use of full-text articles, provided that proper attribution is given and the applicable license terms are respected.

LAJA does not charge submission fees, review fees, article processing charges, or publication fees.

Creative Commons License

Unless otherwise indicated, LAJA content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

This license allows users to share, copy, redistribute, adapt, transform, and reuse the material, including for commercial purposes, provided that appropriate credit is given to the authors and the journal, a link to the license is supplied, and any changes made are indicated.

Authors retain copyright of their work. By accepting publication in LAJA, they grant the journal the right of first publication and the authorization necessary to disseminate the final version of the article through its platforms, indexing services, archives, and related editorial channels.

Authors also retain the right to reuse their work in repositories, books, teaching materials, lectures, compilations, theses, or other academic contexts, provided that initial publication in LAJA is properly acknowledged and the bibliographic reference is preserved.

Peer Review Policy

LAJA uses a double-blind peer review system. All submitted manuscripts first undergo an initial editorial screening to verify:

  • thematic fit with the journal’s focus and scope;
  • compliance with formal submission requirements;
  • overall academic clarity and manuscript structure;
  • basic compliance with ethical and originality criteria.

Manuscripts that pass this stage are sent to external reviewers with expertise in the relevant field. The journal normally seeks two independent review reports. When reports differ substantially, or when required by the nature of the manuscript, the editor may request an additional evaluation.

Possible editorial decisions include:

  • accepted;
  • accepted with minor revisions;
  • resubmission after major revisions and reevaluation;
  • rejected.

The final decision rests with the editor or the competent editorial authority, taking into account the review reports, the scientific quality of the manuscript, its consistency with the journal’s editorial line, and the applicable ethical standards.

Originality, Plagiarism, and Redundant Publication Policy

Manuscripts submitted to LAJA must be original, must not have been previously published in the same form, and must not be under simultaneous consideration by another journal, book, formally published proceedings, or equivalent editorial venue.

LAJA does not accept plagiarism, undisclosed self-plagiarism, duplicate publication, unjustified salami publication, misleading image or data manipulation, citation manipulation, or improper authorship practices. The journal may apply specialized editorial review and similarity-detection tools whenever appropriate.

The journal does not rely solely on a fixed similarity percentage, since assessment depends on context, document type, legitimate quotation practices, standardized methodological language, and the nature of overlapping material. Any problematic overlap will be evaluated academically before an editorial decision is made.

If reasonable concerns about misconduct arise, LAJA may request clarifications, supporting documentation, previous manuscript versions, underlying data, or written explanations. Depending on the seriousness of the case, the journal may reject the manuscript, suspend the editorial process, issue a correction, retract an article, or notify relevant institutions.

Authorship and Contribution Policy

An author or coauthor is understood to be a person who has made substantial and intellectually meaningful contributions to the work, including one or more of the following:

  • conception or design of the study;
  • data acquisition, processing, analysis, or interpretation;
  • substantive methodological or technical development;
  • drafting of the manuscript or critical revision with significant intellectual input;
  • final approval of the version submitted or published.

The inclusion of honorary, guest, or non-contributing authors is contrary to publication ethics. Likewise, the unjustified exclusion of individuals who made substantial contributions is considered improper practice.

The corresponding author is responsible for:

  • ensuring that the author list is accurate, complete, and approved by all coauthors;
  • ensuring that all authors know and approve the submitted version;
  • serving as the main contact with the journal during editorial and post-publication stages.

LAJA may request an explicit authorship contribution statement. Technical, administrative, logistical, or language support that does not qualify as authorship should be acknowledged in the acknowledgements section.

Changes in the order, number, or identity of authors after editorial processing has begun require written justification, explicit consent from all affected authors, and editorial approval.

Funding and Conflict of Interest Disclosure Policy

All authors must transparently disclose funding sources, institutional support, contractual ties, professional relationships, economic interests, or other circumstances that may influence—or be perceived to influence—the interpretation, evaluation, or publication of the manuscript.

Where funding exists, it must be clearly identified in a dedicated section of the manuscript. If no relevant external or internal funding exists, authors may use wording such as: “The authors declare that no specific funding was received for this work.”

If no conflicts of interest exist, authors may use wording such as: “The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest related to this work.”

Whenever the journal considers it necessary, authors may be asked to provide an additional disclosure statement using the framework of the ICMJE Disclosure of Interest.

Research Involving Humans and Animals Policy

Whenever a manuscript reports research involving human participants, identifiable personal data, human biological material, animal experimentation, or other procedures subject to ethical oversight, authors must demonstrate that the study was conducted in accordance with the applicable ethical and regulatory standards.

For research involving human participants, LAJA expects authors to observe the principles established by the Declaration of Helsinki and to indicate, where applicable:

  • the ethics committee that approved the study;
  • the approval number or code;
  • that informed consent was obtained;
  • the measures taken to protect participants’ privacy, dignity, and safety.

For research involving animals, authors must indicate the ethical approval or regulatory framework applicable to the study and describe the animal welfare measures followed.

Where formal ethics approval was not required, authors must provide a clear and reasoned explanation in the manuscript or in the cover letter.

Research Data and Supplementary Materials Policy

LAJA promotes transparency, verifiability, and reproducibility in research. For this reason, authors are encouraged to preserve and, whenever possible, share the data, code, models, protocols, supplementary files, scripts, images, experimental settings, or methodological documentation supporting the results reported in the manuscript.

The journal recommends that data be deposited in trustworthy open repositories, ideally aligned with FAIR principles (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable). Authors may use re3data to identify suitable repositories.

Each manuscript must include a data availability statement, indicating one of the following situations as applicable:

  • the data are publicly available in a repository;
  • the data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request;
  • the data cannot be shared due to legal, ethical, contractual, security, or confidentiality restrictions.

Where data are deposited, the statement should include, whenever possible, the repository name, URL or persistent identifier, and the applicable reuse conditions.

Preprint and Self-Archiving Policy

LAJA may consider manuscripts that have previously been made available as preprints, provided that this is transparently disclosed at the time of submission and that such dissemination does not compromise the integrity of peer review.

The existence of a preprint does not imply editorial acceptance or automatic publication priority. Once the article is published, authors should update the preprint record, whenever possible, by including the full reference to the final version published in LAJA.

Authors may deposit and disseminate permitted versions of their work in institutional repositories, personal websites, academic networks, and other scholarly communication platforms, provided that the initial publication in LAJA is properly acknowledged. There is no embargo period for self-archiving the published version unless otherwise expressly indicated.

Policy on Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models (LLM)

LAJA does not prohibit the responsible use of generative artificial intelligence tools or large language models (LLM) to assist with drafting, translation, language editing, structuring, coding, or auxiliary analysis. However, such tools cannot be listed as authors of a manuscript.

Whenever the use of such tools is substantial, authors must explicitly disclose it in the manuscript or in the cover letter, indicating at least:

  • the tool used;
  • the purpose of its use;
  • the extent of the assistance received.

Full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, integrity, legality, and validity of the content remains exclusively with the human authors.

LAJA follows the general position of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) that only humans can meet authorship criteria and assume public responsibility for scholarly publications.

Reviewers and editors must preserve manuscript confidentiality. Therefore, they must not upload unpublished manuscripts, confidential data, or materials under review to public generative AI systems without express editorial authorization and without sufficient confidentiality guarantees.

Corrections, Retractions, and Expressions of Concern Policy

Whenever substantial errors, relevant omissions, serious inconsistencies, or possible integrity concerns are identified in a submitted manuscript or in a published article, LAJA will assess the need to adopt proportionate editorial measures to protect the scholarly record.

Such measures may include, depending on the seriousness of the case:

  • minor correction or erratum;
  • substantive correction or corrigendum;
  • editorial expression of concern;
  • retraction;
  • exceptional removal of content for legal or safety reasons.

Decisions on corrections and retractions will be made case by case, ensuring due process, reasoned assessment, and sufficient documentation. Where appropriate, LAJA will follow the guidance of COPE.

Editorial notices related to a correction, retraction, or expression of concern must be clear, traceable, and linked to the affected article record.

Appeals and Complaints Policy

Authors may submit a reasoned appeal against an editorial decision when they believe that a material error, a clearly flawed evaluation, or a relevant procedural irregularity occurred. An appeal should not merely express disagreement with the outcome; it must clearly explain the academic or procedural grounds for reconsideration.

LAJA may also receive complaints concerning ethical conduct, undisclosed conflicts of interest, editorial treatment, substantial errors, or issues related to submitted or published articles.

Appeals and complaints should be sent to the journal’s editorial email: journal@intinauta.com. The journal will seek to acknowledge receipt within a reasonable time and to assess the case with fairness, proportionality, and due editorial process.

In this area, LAJA takes as a reference the COPE guidance on complaints and appeals.

Digital Preservation and Record Stability Policy

LAJA recognizes the importance of long-term preservation of the version of record and of maintaining stability in metadata, identifiers, files, and public access to published articles.

The journal manages its contents through an OJS-based editorial platform and maintains editorial safeguards aimed at service continuity, document integrity, and consistency of the published record. When specific preservation services, distributed archiving arrangements, preservation monitoring systems, or persistent identifier services are activated, that information will be expressly published on the journal website.

Advertising and Editorial Independence Policy

LAJA preserves the academic independence of its editorial decisions. Acceptance, review, or rejection of manuscripts is not conditioned by commercial, promotional, advertising, or other non-scholarly interests.

The journal does not allow advertising that may compromise its academic credibility, create conflicts of interest, or affect the editorial experience of users. Any legitimate institutional support or sponsorship will be communicated transparently and without interference in the editorial process.

Privacy and Personal Data Use Policy

The names, email addresses, and other personal data provided by authors, reviewers, and users will be used exclusively for editorial, administrative, academic, and technical purposes related to the operation of LAJA.

The journal will not use this information for unrelated purposes or improperly share it with third parties. Personal data processing will be limited to what is necessary for manuscript handling, editorial communication, scholarly publication, and platform operation.

LAJA also promotes editorial transparency in line with good publishing practices and with the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing.